I must admit, that having grown up during the “Beatles boom” and seeing the next generation come up, including my own two daughters, there is less of a “generation gap” between my generation and our children than ever before! This is largely due to the lifestyle of our generation, which has been for the most part, embraced, but even more due to the music! Sure, they have their own music’s of choice, such as Rap, Hip-hop and Heavy Metal, all genres that we find a little hard to swallow, but the magic of the guitar is as big, if not even bigger, than ever.

This is also exemplified in how many very young, almost too young students are brought to me by their parents, all of whom would think it would be just the cutest thing to see their kids as “rock stars!” This is not, of course, where I am coming from, and I was lucky enough to have my dad picture and encourage me as a guitarist, simply due to his passion for Flamenco music! He could see that I was picking things up off the record easily at ten years old, and that the violin just didn’t “do it” for me!

The difference is that he really saw it for me in an artistic way, and far too many people, who only dabbled in music and want their children to do the same, are trying to vicariously live the “rock star” thing through their kids. And believe me, this is even sometimes when the kids could care less about playing the guitar!

Still, we are a generation that expressed itself perhaps most eloquently through our music, and the kids today (who may be you!) are very much grabbing ahold of what we also held so near and dear to our hearts. I mean there are “Dead Head” kids, 8 year-old Heavy Metal “shredders”, 12 year-old Blues phenoms and on and on. What gets passed along in a family is always the strongest, and not only the love of music can be passed on, but also, of course, the taste in music. Some of it, like The Beatles for example, will simply never fall out of favor, simply because of their universal appeal, songs, talent, attitude and general charisma that just simply can’t be denied, and which is so infectious! If I listen to any Beatles’ recording, I am immediately transported back to what that song meant to me back then, and feel what it still means to me now!

So remember that whether you are aware of it or not, you are “passing it on” to your and other kids when it comes to your love of music. Just don’t force them in a damaging way to have to like certain groups or players they may not find appealing just yet, since they also must find their own way, and their own taste. Bottom line…….there really is no “generation gap”, especially when it comes to the guitar! Enjoy!